By AFP and Focus | 2025-11-27

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te November 26 said his government will propose $40 billion in additional defense spending over eight years, as the democratic island seeks to deter a potential Chinese invasion.

"The ultimate goal is to establish defense capabilities that can permanently safeguard democratic Taiwan," Lai said at a news conference in Taipei, one day after announcing the $40 billion defense plan in a Washington Post opinion piece. In the piece, he did not disclose the intended timeline for spending that sum.

Taiwan has ramped up defense spending in the past decade as Chinese military pressure intensified, but US President Donald Trump's administration has pushed the island to do more to protect itself.

More arms, more asymmetrical capabilities

The extra spending would go towards "significant new arms acquisitions from the United States. but also vastly enhance Taiwan's asymmetrical capabilities," Lai said in the Post.

The investment "underscores our commitment to defending Taiwan's democracy," he said, calling the package a landmark step meant to delay or deter any attack.

Lai said Taiwan had remained "steadfast" in the face of record incursions by the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which has held drills probing past the strategic first island chain.

That chain includes Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.

The exercises show Beijing's increasing readiness to change the status quo by force, Lai said in the Post.

'The People's Republic of China's unprecedented military buildup, combined with intensifying provocations in the Taiwan Strait, East and South China Seas and across the Indo-Pacific, have highlighted the fragility of peace in the region," he added, in framing the supplementary budget as a necessary response to a widening strategic challenge.

Beijing's implacable ambitions

Communist China has never ruled Taiwan, but Beijing claims the island is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to annex it.

The announcement came as Tokyo and Beijing were locked in a weeks-long diplomatic spat sparked by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's suggestion that Japan could intervene militarily against any Chinese attack on Taiwan.

The dispute fed into a recent phone call between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, when Xi asserted China's sovereignty over Taiwan.

The Sino-Japanese feud also follows US approval earlier this month for $330 million worth of parts and components in the first military sale to Taiwan of the second Trump administration.

Details of Taiwanese spending

Lai, who leads the Democratic Progressive Party, has outlined plans to raise annual defense spending to more than 3% of GDP next year and 5% by 2030. Government figures show defense spending could reach $30.25 billion in 2026, or 3.32% of GDP, the first time Taiwan would cross that threshold since 2009.

Alongside new weapon purchases, Lai pledged to speed development of the T-Dome air-defense network, a multilayered system integrating artificial-intelligence-enabled early warning, missile interceptors, drone defenses and counter-air platforms. He has promoted similar arguments in earlier outreach to US audiences, Bloomberg reported, part of a strategy to ensure Washington understands the threat.

Lai highlighted new efforts to strengthen coordination among government, the military and civil society through a Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee created last year. The committee will improve Taiwan's ability to respond to natural disasters or human-made crises, he said.

"My message here is clear: Taiwan's dedication to peace and stability is unwavering," Lai said in the Post. "No country will be more determined in safeguarding Taiwan's future than our own."

Hurdles in Taiwan

But the government may struggle to gain approval by parliament, which the opposition -- the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party -- controls. Kuomintang chairperson Cheng Li-wun has dismissed Lai's goals, saying Taiwan "doesn't have that much money."

Special budgets such as this one face steep hurdles because they require legislative approval, Bloomberg reported.

Lai insisted, however, that Taiwan remains open to dialogue with Beijing. He wrote that while Taipei would continue to seek opportunities for talks, its policies were "grounded by more than wishful thinking."